2008 Coast Guard Statistics

10-31-2009, 08:02 PM

To those citing the Coast Guard data, I hate to burst your bubble, but the fatalities are categorized by the speed of the boat the victim was in...usually the slower-moving smaller boat, such as the kayaker who got run over by a speeding performance boat. Since the kayaker was standing still, that fatality is listed as "0-10 MPH". The speed of the speedboat is not recorded unless one of its passengers was killed too. This might seem obvious, given that it is hard for someone standing still to cause a deadly collision, so seeing all those deaths at 0-10MPH should have clued.
I have no idea how they categorize when they don't know the speed, like if some one had been killed int he striking boat when Mr. Hartman was killed. Maybe they just use the speed that the striking boater says he was going. In that case, the death would have been in the 20-30MPH bracket because that is the speed Littlefield claimed to have been going.

Speaking of the Hartman death, doesn't this fatal NJ accident sound very similar?;
http://www.woodenboat.com/forum/show....php?p=1913240

10-31-2009, 08:02 PM	#11
elchase Guest Posts: n/a	To those citing the Coast Guard data, I hate to burst your bubble, but the fatalities are categorized by the speed of the boat the victim was in...usually the slower-moving smaller boat, such as the kayaker who got run over by a speeding performance boat. Since the kayaker was standing still, that fatality is listed as "0-10 MPH". The speed of the speedboat is not recorded unless one of its passengers was killed too. This might seem obvious, given that it is hard for someone standing still to cause a deadly collision, so seeing all those deaths at 0-10MPH should have clued. I have no idea how they categorize when they don't know the speed, like if some one had been killed int he striking boat when Mr. Hartman was killed. Maybe they just use the speed that the striking boater *says* he was going. In that case, the death would have been in the 20-30MPH bracket because that is the speed Littlefield *claimed* to have been going. Speaking of the Hartman death, doesn't this fatal NJ accident sound very similar?; http://www.woodenboat.com/forum/show....php?p=1913240 Last edited by elchase; 11-01-2009 at 09:35 AM.